I have tried
without resolution to expose the revisionist editing of the Yale
Daily News (see my Mar. 3 YDN article: A Wonderful
Experience), and so now turn to you. First, please read the
botched-up article of mine run in the Dec. 12 YDN, and then
compare it to what I had intended them to print (enclosed). The
difference is startling; and deserves print on your website.

Sincerely,
Brian Ginsberg '04

Dear Brian,
Unfortunately, we are in agreement with the YDN's editorial
stance. In order to publish your story, we have re-revised it.
-Ed.

Though the climb
to the employee lounge from the mezzanine of the Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library is usually an agreeable one, today curator
Robert Babcock doesn't like what he sees. Tossed among the stacks
of the manuscripts section this morning is a heap of rare documents,
some, like Henry Clay's secret correspondences with Caroline Webster,
tear-stained and torn, and others, like Andrew Jackson's Tennessee
speeches, incorrectly shoved into the pages Anne Bradstreet's A
Dialogue Between Queen Elizabeth and the Ladyes of New England.
HIST 436b, JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY student that I am, I cleverly remark
that this might be the work of the mischievous Daniel Webster, and
warn Babcock that a Bank of America heist may be next. Fortunately
cataloguing nearby is Americana curator Patricia Willis, and we
two are soon into hysterics, but there stands snooty Babcock, his
grave features sharpening even finer into a sepulcher. This is
too good Patricia giggles into my ear, and now her mind's on
Andrew Jackson's famous kitchen cabinet speech, the one where he
reiterates, stone-faced, they aren't for making coffee, except
Patricia has made coffee, and now her poor stomach, jittered
with the mix of arabica and metaphors, gives out. Respecting Miss
Willis's wishes, your reporter refuses to give any more details,
but it's enough to write that I owe Babcock a new suit, and Beinecke
a new first edition Leaves of Grass.

A few minutes
later Patricia feels better enough to give me the goods. Turns out
Babcock's suspicions for yesterday's Beinecke desecration are
on Daniel Webster, but that that's not all the ex-ex-senator has
been up to. Supposedly stall two of Beinecke's public restroom is
haunted by eerie tirades against protective tariffs (which I imagine
must constrict conservative Babcock's sphincter even tighter with
fear); and, better, all one hundred and twenty members of the Whig
party now apparently infest the snacks in the downstairs vending
machine. "That's absurd," I tell Patricia, "No one believes in protective
tariffs anymore." But the plot thickens when, from her manuscript-sized
purse, she produces a secret intra-office memo detailing Beinecke's
yearly "Whig Party", where in a single irresponsible evening, Beinecke
employees smuggle out a dozen documents written by a member of that
frivolous political party, and, with a book collector's care, proceed
cutting them into rolling paper, all to reach a compromise with
the "plantation system" that Arts and Sciences registrar Barry Kane
has growing cannabis in his office closet. And this year's honored
politician is Daniel Webster. Ridiculous stuff, but obviously
Barry S. Kane is the man I should go see.

"I hear the
big story now is the 1.5 million budget error," says Kane, glinting
nervously as he slips a cool five hundred dollar bill, and academic
transcript, into my left hand. Recently Kane has become notorious
advising Daily News reporters to transfer out of New England,
but now the solemn weariness that attends his gesture makes one
suspect Kane has considered the move, as well. "Yeah, Barry, let's
hope you don't run our nest egg that way," flutters his ditzy receptionist,
and we all laugh. Your reporter pauses to wonder what relation this
may hold with sleazy Beinecke parties and ghost sightings, but is
reluctant to ask, given that today Kane looks pretty ghost-like
himself, as if the ivory carvings adorning his office wall were
the sole earthly things preventing his departure into the woodwork.
Kane wishes me luck on my story, remarking that Stanford has a fine
student newspaper. Yeah, I say to myself, for lining birdcages.